


For The Good of Us All

by Spectrophile



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Other, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 22:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20182024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spectrophile/pseuds/Spectrophile
Summary: -SPOILER LADEN, PLEASE DON'T READ WITHOUT HAVING FINISHED SHADOWBRINGERS-I tried to leave the WoL as gender ambiguous so that you could easily imagine your own in their place. So please enjoy!-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Warrior of Light, sick with light, ventures to the bottom of the Tempest with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to find Emet-Selch. What will become of a burdened hero when they return to a sad mimicry of home?





	For The Good of Us All

Your head crackled and pulsed, staining your vision with fissures of pure white. By the twelve, it was sheer agony. Despite this, you tread onward through the Tempest. Your fellow Scions trail behind you, all in awe of the ocean floor that sprawls ever downward. You’re here for one purpose: you _ must _ find Emet-Selch.

The Ondo had told you that it would be a treacherous venture, and indeed it was. A myriad of marine life littered the way to your destination, each more aggressive than the last. Creatures of the deep are no match for a pack of Scions, however. You and your’s reach the exit of your trawl, looking out onto a sight unlike anything you have ever seen. An immense cityscape that spread out for what seemed malms and malms. Tall spires of twisting, elegant metal, decorated by brilliantly shining windows. 

You grit your teeth and hiss as your head erupts into light, obscuring this bizarre civilization. You hear your friends calling out to you as you collapse into the seafloor, a cloud of sand and algae puffing up as you’re embraced by searing visions. Nothing your comrades say is discernible, it is muffled and unintelligible. At this moment, there is nothing you can do. You give into blissful unconsciousness, foregoing the agony of your body that bursts with light.

  
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“Persephone, were you listening to me?” 

You raise your head from your desk. It is a mess of papers and various art tools. Pencils and paints are scattered around within a hand’s reach. Whenever you were conceptualizing, you always got so,_ so _lost in your work. Aside from debate, it was what you treasured. You smile softly at your sketch, quickly swiveling in your chair to turn to the gentleman who quizzed you.

“Of course I was. I think a large beak is quite silly as well.” You grin and chuckle at your concept. 

“And what of mine?” Your inquisitor suavely turns his head to a profile, grinning at you to showcase his nose. He cups his own chin, extending his fingers in a boasting fashion.

Rising from your chair, you peck at the bridge of his nose most tenderly. “As handsome as ever...” You plant another soft kiss on his forehead as he leans into it with a gentle hum. “...My dear Hades.”

“Let us see how our concept is going.” Hades proclaims. He too stands, an arm around your waist and a hand at your hip. You look down at your latest concept with him and then up to him for approval. Hades purses his lips, his eyes rolling down to look at you. You stifle a chortle, hardly able to hold it in, which overtakes you both in a fit of belly-laughter. Hades wipes a tear away from his eye, then holding up your drawing with his free hand. A tall avian critter with a _ massive _ beak and little lanky legs. It’s endowed with slate gray feathers and beady golden eyes.

“Lahabrea will just love this won’t he?”

  
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Your eyes are heavy as they open. The hot-white light clears from your vision as slowly as you stand. Sweat drips down your face as you look around, your friend’s staring back at you in awe. You were not aware that they had helped you up from your dazed mess on the ocean floor. 

“We need to find Emet-Selch! I can watch after them, I can’t bare to think what would happen if-” Ryne begins before being cut off.

“None of us can bare it!” Alisaie snaps and is a mess of tears as she clenched her fist, looking down into the sand. She looks to you and back to Ryne. “I’m sorry Ryne. I don’t mean to yell at you.” Alisaie roughly wipes at her face with her sleeve. “We all must go together.” 

Ryne chokes back whatever she was thinking of to say and tightly hugs you. “We’ll get through this. Together.” You feel her face wet on your chestpiece, stifling a sob. You cradle the back of Ryne’s head and wrap your other arm around her to comfort her. Veins of white creep around your entirety once more, but you must endure. For those we have lost. For those we can yet save.

“Urianger… do you know anything about this place?” You turn to the elezen who studiously gazes out to the enormous scene ahead. Ryne parts from you, face dried and with a seemingly renewed confidence.

Urianger sways his head, “Nay, mine friend. I hath not seen such a composition.” He strokes his chin ponderably. “It is without doubt that Emet-Selch hath retreated here. It would be of best judgement that we make haste.”

Ryne takes your hand as you make way to a tall building overhanging the cliff you are perched upon. Your head burns, but not in a way that is so painful. It almost feels comforting.

  
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The building you approached is what you find to be an elevator into the city. You feel so warm, as if a weighted blanket caresses you. Softly, snugly. By now, your friends have made it a fair bit ahead of you, speaking with enormous enrobed individuals. They had told you this was the city of Amaurot, and with that, memories trickled into your mind like a small fracture on a water pipe. Slowly, slowly. 

“Are you lost, little one?” 

A wash of joy overcomes you as you look up to this tall shade. You look ahead to the Scions who are talking with others. “Yes. I am quite lost.” 

The Ancient kneels down and extends to you a gloved hand. Tears effortlessly stream down your cheeks as you place your hand delicately into theirs. “Where do you head?” They bellow. Before, their voice was something you understood, but it seemed foreign. This language seemed more comfortable to you now than your own.

You smile to the Ancient and respond in their same tongue. “Please take me to Emet-Selch.”

They stand back up, but not upright. The grasp they have on your hand is so kind. Your people were so kind. “He has been waiting so long for you to come home.”

You and your new friend walk ahead through the beautiful city of Amaurot. The air smells nothing like the sea like you think it would. Instead, a breeze gently rolls, carrying delicate floral notes. It rustles through looming trees overhead, leaving your mouth a touch agape when parted leaves reveal a bird with a funny beak. Another tear leaves your eye. You no longer hear your friends of the Source.

You stop at a large building and the Ancient kneels down once again, clasping your held hand with their free one. “You live on the top floor, little one.” They let go and pat the top of your head, turning to leave as they stand up. 

“...I live?”

“Emet-Selch is a great speaker. One of our best. I’m sure he will help you remember.”

  
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The lobby for the apartment building is quite opulent, but not in the same fashion as something like Eulmore. It is humble and homey. A fountain is the centerpiece of this room, with four seahorse sculptures that playfully spew water into a basin. A chandelier cascades a golden glow across cushy seats and flower pots. Two Ancients are conversing ahead in front of an elevator, you discern that they’re discussing on how to best conceptualize new flowers. After a good look, you meet up with them as soon as the elevator doors open, shuffling inside with them.

“Do you know where you’re going? I can help you if you need.” One of them asks, tilting their head so slightly at you. You nod and thank them for their offer. They nod back to you and you can almost sense a smile behind their glowing masked face. The two Ancients give a goodbye wave to you as the door opens, leaving you alone in the elevator as it ascends further. 

Tendrils of seething light take hold of your vision once more, so strongly that they tug you to the ground. You cry out viscerally as you collapse to your knees, growling and clutching at tufts of your hair. Alone and dying in an elevator shaft was not becoming of a warrior such as you, but here it was happening. You needed to hold on. You bang your first on the floor, cold metal making a loud, hollow cry. Burning white bile lurches up from your stomach and onto the floor, sizzling. You fully collapse on the icy floor, narrowly avoiding it. You whimper like a sad little animal and are beckoned once again to dreams. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------

“Must you always work yourself so sick? A concept isn’t going to run itself away from you, should you attend to other matters… Perhaps a soft pillow and bed.”

He brushes gently at your head with a luxurious cold silk, something of his own making. With a snap of his fingers, or your’s for that manner, it goes from room temperature to a soothing chill. He knew how much you detested heat. He drapes the red sash across your forehead and thumbs at your cheek tenderly. Your head rests on his lap with both of you laying in an elegant chaise. 

“Nnn… It’s not that bad. I’m a tad exhausted, but nothing I can’t manage.” You sprawl your arms out and wrap them around his waist, earning a dismissive sigh from Hades. He smiles down at you with blatant affection in his eyes as his thumb slowly circles your cheek. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------

You wake up drenched in sweat, scarcely catching your breath as you come to. You are laying on a long chaise. A glass of ice water rests on an end-table beside you. You hear something akin to a snap, and a low fire flickers in a fireplace unlike any you have seen before. It is a pretty robin blue. No warmth reaches you, instead, a chill. You reach your hand to your head to wipe sweat from your brow, only to brush off a cold red silk. It slowly falls to the floor. Things you had been dreaming slowly surface to reality as you peer around the room, and then, your eyes meet. 

“I see you’ve taken my offer, hero.”

He shuffles toward you, aeons of burden weighing down his back with each step. “What, not good enough for you?” He looks down at what you had brushed off your head and back to you. You push yourself up in your seat, vision blurring as you quickly sit up. You grab hold of the ice water and gulp it down furiously. Anything to subside the burning within you. Emet-Selch snaps his fingers again and the blue flames go from a flicker to a roar. You slump against the back of the chaise, staring at him as the unusual flame soothes you. 

“Hades.” 

Emet-Selch jerks into an upright stance, eyes widened. He carefully steps closer to you, so much weight in each step. 

“I remember you, Hades. I remember.”

“...Persephone?”

He grabs hold of your hands, so strongly that it pulls you up from your seat. It felt almost weightless. You wordlessly look into each other's eyes, a transference of a millennia of loneliness and pain. It grabs hold of you and pulls you into tears. He worked so hard. He toiled for so long for everything to go back to how it was. And now you were here and you could make things right. The light of so many Light Wardens pulsed in your breast, begging you to do what you must. 

You had known him as Emet-Selch before coming to the Tempest, before coming to Amaurot. Despite him telling you otherwise, you had never thought someone like him capable of crying. But that was you unenlightened, and this was him as you had known him. He was Hades. Emet-Selch but a title. Tears dripped down his cheeks and you pulled him into a vice-grip of a hug. “You did so well, my love.” You whispered to him. He seemed at a loss for words, holding you tightly and weeping into you. His body wracked itself with sobs, heaving as he pulled you into him so snugly. 

You held each other for what seemed an eternity. A bittersweet eternity. You both cried until you could cry no more. Hades cautiously parted from you, his darkly circled eyes puffy and slick as he scanned your face. He gently kissed the bridge of your nose, and it sent joyous fireworks off in your head, happy memories coming to you. It seems he could tell and it makes him laugh.

Hades takes your hand and beckons you to follow him, and you feel joy that you haven’t felt in many lifetimes. So many times has your sundered soul tried again and again to revert what you had done, but it was always met with failure. Not this time.

He takes you to a familiar desk, various art tools littering the top of it. A framed painting of a shoebill hangs above it, adorned with a wreath of flowers. A grin plastered itself across your face as you and him burst into a fit of nostalgic laughter. “Did you remember then, when you saw me following you?” Hades reminisces to you, eyes full of love. You sheepishly sway your head in a ‘no’, “I didn’t.” 

“Here, please sit.” He pulls your chair out for you as you lower into it, looking to him for guidance. “Can this… _ form _ produce anything worthwhile?” He furrows his brows questionably. You crack your knuckles and slide a piece of paper toward you, picking up a pen. It fits into your grasp so comfortably. This must have been your favorite. You look up to him, “Is there something specific in mind?” He puts his gloved hands on your shoulders and gently massages them. “No, no. I want what is on your mind.” He leans in with suppressed excitement to see you conceptualize.

Your hand glides across fresh canvas in broad strokes. Emet’s loving hands work at little kinks in your shoulders as you doodle along, trying to impress him. You could almost forget the pain within you as you shared such an intimate moment with one you had, and still, loved very much. “Do you like it?” You ask, brushing away small flakes of eraser. 

Hades nods to you, raising an arm into the air. “When all is right and our brethren rise from their dark slumber, you shall have the ability to do this once more.” He snaps his fingers, and with a puff of dark smoke, a red mask floats in front of you. “...A new mask, for a new you, I see.” It floats down slowly with a light tap onto the desk. 

You lean back into him, the back of your head pressed firmly into his stomach. You raise the mask up to your face as you look up at him, grinning fully. “Do you mind… if we rest?” 

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Hades leads you to a bathroom with low lighting, shutting the door behind you both. A round tub is circled with blue candles, which light with a snap of his fingers. The gentle flames dance softly, flickering against your skin as you both undress. With your tops halfway down, he pushes you passionately against the wall with a rough kiss, and you return in kind. You suppose you can wait a while before bathing.

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You lay in a bed with Hades. The room is dark as curtains are clasped tightly together to prevent light from entering. You face each other in the dark, lovingly intertwined. Every now and again he places little kisses on your forehead and cheeks. Sometimes your ears. He tenderly strokes the small of your back while you massage his shoulders and sides. 

“I’m sorry that there couldn’t be another way.” Hades whispers dejectedly, his movements slowing. You stop massaging to pull him in as closely as possible. You do not see that Hades stares out into the darkness, quiet tears rolling down onto the pillow. “It’s for the good of us all.” You respond to him, face nuzzled deep in his chest. The light feels stronger now than it had ever been, but you feel safe. 

_ It’s for the good of us all. _

_ It’s for the good of us all. _

_ It’s for the good of us all. _

A peaceful sleep overcomes you, despite you wanting to stay awake. 

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It’s morning now, but you could never tell the difference between night and day on the First. Hades stands outside your bedroom door, hands pressed against it. He deeply breathes in and out, preparing himself. The door is hard to open, but he manages. It scrapes against large white growth that sprawl the room, all leading to the bed.

He knew it was coming, it is why you came after all. He did not expect, however, for you to remember as much as you did. Or anything at all, really. Perhaps a cruel trick of Hydaelyn. 

He treads to you. A large white cocoon on the bed. Your bed. So many nights of love and sleep and memories. Your chitinous growths enrapture the room, consuming everything as you lay in a pulsing, sickly creation. You will not remember anything when it cracks, when you emerge as the most powerful Light Warden to ever grace the First. One day you will be Rejoined and you will be Persephone once more. But not yet. For Emet-Selch’s duty is yet complete. So many aeons of meticulous planning are coming to fruition.

A blood-curdling scream escapes him as he slams two fists down onto your changing form.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a proper fan-fic in about eight years, so I really hope you enjoyed this! <3
> 
> This was super fun to write, thank you so much for reading!


End file.
